Arizona weekly enterprise., 1887-07-02
EARTh UPHEAVALS.
The Effects of Earthquakes Much Worse
 Than Those of Cyclones.

1nefe Is SOmetnng aDOut those mighty displays of natures forces which we term earthquakes that inter- ests and fascinates a vast majority of mankind. Probably few readers are aware that since 1888 no less than 250 earthquakes have occurred in various parts of New England and the Atlantic States. Previous to the recent destruct- i've earthquake at Charleston the most severe shock known in this country was at New Madrid, Mo, in 1911. The ground rose in huge waves, which burst, and volumes of water, sand, and pit coal were thrown high as the tops of the trees. The forests waved like stand ing corn in gale of wind, and an area seventy miles long by thirty miles wide was submerged and became a swampy lake.
 On August l3, l86S, fearful earth quake took place in Peru,i which laid waste much of the country lying be- tween the Andes and the Pacific. The shocks were felt through distance of 1.4O0 miles, north and south. and three important cities were destroyed. At Arequipa, in Peru, forty miles from the sea. a slight undulatory shock was felt, followed by others so violent that in five minutes not house was standing in that city of 44,000 inhabitants. A sub terrnnean rumbling, like the rush of an avalanche. was heard above the crash. and a cloud of dust rose ill the still air over the city. O. the seacoast were situated Iquiquc an.i Arica-both were destroyed by the shocks, and over whelmed by tremendous wave. The ocean thus took up the vibrations of the land, and waves of tremendous volume were put in motion, which rolled. not only upon the coast. but away from it with q velocity in the deep ocean of not less than 400 miles an hour. The great wave-for one was of much greater volume than the others - has been estimated at upward of 200 miles breadth, with length along its curved crest of S.00O miles. This rolled into the harbor of Yokohama, in Japan, 10, 800 miles distant, and was felt Ut Port Fairy. in South Victoria, distant nearly one-half of the earth's circumference.
 The opening and closing of Assures and chasms in the ground during earth l quakes is eommonipheuomenon. Men, animals and dwellings are sometimes swallowed in them and forever disap pear. In 1S4S an earthquake shook a large portion of New Zealand, and 8 Assure of great depth opened along . chain of mountains from one thousand to 1T thousand feet high, extending sixty miles, but of not more than eigh i teen inches in average width. Durin: the Cal;lbrian earthquake of 17S5 tn, surface of the ground opened ant closed in immense Assures, by mean of which new lakes were formed ant others drained or were dried up. A Jerocarne the earth is described, by Si Charles Lyell, as lacerated in an extra ordinary manner. "Fissures ran il every direction. Hike cracks in broker pane of glass" In another instance several dwellings were engulfed in Assure, and were found to be jammed with their contents. into compac mass. Chasms of immense length am |. depth were formed.} Some were cres cent-shapeds and d mile in length. Tn
 plains of Gtlabria were covered i
 many places with circular hollows fror one footto three or four feet in diameter Some of these were filled with water
 others with dry sand.
 But changes inthe earth's crust G
 cur during earthquakes, on a sti
 grander scale. Evidences of local dis
 turbance, however disastrous it ma
 have been. are often effaced if not fol
 gotten in a few centuries, frequent
 in few years. But the slow upheav;
 of mountain chains and the dislocatio
 of strata through profound depths al
 results which have been the subject of il
 quiry by the worlds leading geologist
 Whether the central portions of til earth be fluid or not, it is quite certai that heat increases as we descend; an . it is estimated by Sir Charles Lyell tn;
 the heat at depth of twenty-five mil, would be sufficient to melt granite, an at thirty-four miles to render fluid (
 incandescent every known substanc We have no, means of knowing the col dition of matter under the enormol pressure which prevails at depth thirty four miles. and are most col cerned with the fact that the heat fusion exists at no very great depth b f meath the surface. The earth's cru ' is, therefore, it's cooled exterior.
 l It is found that nearly all rocks col : tract by cooling and expand by hea Lyell estimates that sandstone a mile
 thickness, and heated to 200 degre
 Fahrenheit, would expand so as to Ii ., a mass of rock upon it ten feet above s former level; and if mass of Il
 earth's crust equally expansible, fiji
 miles in thickness, be heated to 800
 grees, it would rise 1,500 feet. Fro
 cooling we have the reverse effect
 shrinkage, contraction, lateral pro : sure, and ultimately blending of | ? strata. The strain thus produced W
 at length cause fracture, and the '
 bration that results is an earthquak 10 This form of tension is being contin
 ally and everywhere produced in t ] earths crust, and there is probably T instant of time when that crust is c u f,.oo f,.oy,, .srHL o,,o